I have to agree with another reviewer who said the stories were inconsistent. I nearly cried during the title story "The Angel Esmerelda" and thoughtI have to agree with another reviewer who said the stories were inconsistent. I nearly cried during the title story "The Angel Esmerelda" and thought "Hammer and Sickle" was a good commentary on greed in our culture. However, some of the others like "Ivory Acrobat" and "Baader-Meinhof" drifted pointlessly.

This is yet another contemporary author who schtick I simply don't get. It's completely possible that my disengagement from popular culture and/or pasThis is yet another contemporary author who schtick I simply don't get. It's completely possible that my disengagement from popular culture and/or pastimes has made me somewhat of an idiot savant, only conversant in the one or two topics that I'm well informed on and interested in, so if this book is saying something about the youth of today, I may have missed the boat or am simply not cool enough to be in the know.

I guess I was hoping, quite naively, for a jokey, humorous, ironic tone, kind of like the McSweeny's website —was the book supposed to be serious? I still haven't figured that part out, but I suppose I was expecting more humor, less "Fight Club" inspired, absurdist plot twists mixed with unlikable characters. Am I the only one who hated the guy in "Scientific American" for feeding his dog the gel oozing out of his wall and then immediately feeling guilty about it?

Ummm...so, yeah, lots of the stories felt disjointed to me like the author over relied on quirky subject matter—for example, a masochistic girl who loves to be socked in the face by complete strangers—at the expense of plot or storyline.

I couldn't put this book down. Diaz's characters aren't the most likable or might not have the most redeeming qualities. As noted in other reviews, maI couldn't put this book down. Diaz's characters aren't the most likable or might not have the most redeeming qualities. As noted in other reviews, many of the men in this novel chase tail like it's a job (Google 'Do Dominican men cheat?' for a full range of opinions on the matter).

But reading this book through the lens of American culture might not be the best thing. For what it's worth, I think Diaz is trying to provide his audience with an accurate yet critical portrayal of Dominican culture—warts and all—which I think can be tough to do if you're essentially writing about your own people and are super-conflicted about how you feel. One thing that I think Diaz does beautifully is talk about the struggle that immigrants go through when they come to the U.S. for a better life, leaving behind friends, family and everything else that's familiar for an uncertain outcome.

She tells me that she's been sick, that she's had to move twice, that her housemates have stolen her money. She has the scared, hunted look of the unlucky.

There's a yearning that Diaz's characters always have to return to their homeland under different circumstances, despite the horrors of their past lives.

How for an undisclosed sum her mother had married her off at thirteen to a stingy fifty-year-old; how after a couple years of that terribleness she got the chance to jump from Las Matas de Farfan to Newark, brought over by a tia who wanted her to take care of her retarded son and bedridden husband; how she had run away from her, too, because she hadn't come to Nueba Yol to to be a slave to anyone, not anymore.

For me, reading a Diaz novel is like cultural immersion, it's a window into a world I don't get much exposure to. For that, I am grateful. And it doesn't hurt that I grew up in NJ and went to Rutgers too....more

It's tough to write about middle-aged angst realistically while also creating characters that will be loved and admired by readers. By nature, the proIt's tough to write about middle-aged angst realistically while also creating characters that will be loved and admired by readers. By nature, the problems of middle-age men—excluding serious, life-threatening illnesses or job loss—tend to revolve around dissatisfaction with life, jobs, relationships, etc...feel inconsequential, even middling against the enormous scope of modern-day global issues like ISIS and world hunger. Authors like Cheever and Updike used to portray the lives of dissatisfied suburbanites in an era when revealing your marital unhappiness was tantamount to social suicide. They were cutting edge! But, as time wore on, the traditional tethers of adulthood—marriage and children—seemed to be less permanent as more people divorced or didn't marry at all. Somehow the stifling nature of a suffocating marriage is less poignant when it's entirely possible to reinvent oneself by moving on.

As with many books of short stories there were a blend of good stories and those I would have preferred to have skipped over. The last story, White Man's Problems was the best, in my opinion. A divorced man accompanies his son on a sleepover school trip, where his shortcomings as both a father and human being are revealed.

As a sidenote, I had no idea until I read the book that the author was a coproducer of Book of Mormon! ...more

Of the stories I liked from this prolific collection of writing—and by prolific, I simply mean that there were a lot of titled works, some of which weOf the stories I liked from this prolific collection of writing—and by prolific, I simply mean that there were a lot of titled works, some of which were only two lines—I was most impressed by his ability to create a scenario that is both believable and completely absurd, in a way that was strikingly similar to The Onion.

One example of that would be "Julie and the Warlord" where a woman goes on a date with a warlord she met online. The concept of a warlord utilizing a dating site to meet unsuspecting women is hilarious to me and Novak has a real flair for dialogue writing, which makes sense given that he writes for TV, so it comes across as funny in this very understated and subtle way.

"Well what kind of a lord are you anyways, eh?" she asked with an old-timey "what's the big idea" accent. God, she was a bit tipsy, wasn't she? "I'm a warlord."

Most of the strong stories seemed to be clustered at the beginning, so if you're only going to read a part of this book you might want to start there rather than skip around. Another story, "The Rematch," is essentially a continuation of "The Tortoise and the Hare" with the rabbit as a super-competitive Type-A personality who watches old videotapes of his races and tries to trip up the tortoise during a rematch. Reading this made me picture a rabbit doing lots of exaggerated head rolls and stretches to prepare for the race while wearing a sweatband to hold his ears back and it was pretty funny to me.

As others have mentioned, some of the stories are really, really short, more like fleeting thoughts rather than any sort of coherent narrative. For those with dwindling attention spans—i.e. most people accustomed to the intrusion of phones, internet and all other forms of technological distraction—this may be the perfect book.

But, on a side note, I would LOVE to see "The Comedy Central Roast of Nelson Mandela" performed as an actual skit....more

Why is it that so many short stories fizzle out or dissolve at the end? Is the writer on deadline? Or maybe the coffee shop is flicking the lights andWhy is it that so many short stories fizzle out or dissolve at the end? Is the writer on deadline? Or maybe the coffee shop is flicking the lights and threatening to turn off the Wifi so they're just like "Fuck it, this should be good enough," before writing "He went to sleep. The End."

This is not necessarily a criticism aimed ONLY at this novel, but I find it to be an appalling crutch that many short story writers rely on, perhaps because they assume the audience is not invested for the long haul, so they just try and make the journey as pleasant as possible. In any case, this may be a problem without a solution since you are generally investing in characters for a short time and it's probably difficult and also somewhat unbelievable to tie up all the loose ends tidily in a few pages.

But, you know, the saving grace with these short stories may just be their absurd story lines which, in some cases, ended up being pretty amusing. In "King of All Sentences" a couple of author groupies stalk their favorite author by showing up at the post office and waiting for him. Their obsession was pretty entertaining but there may have been a lot of subtext I was missing (why exactly was the author so threatening in his youth?). "Traveler Home" was kind of funny because it was about a guy from the city who awkwardly adjusts to the mores of "country folk." One night he's confronted by a pack of seven wolves who give him a gift and decide not to eat him. But the ending, which I obviously won't give away here, was fairly weak.

Maybe my expectations are too high—I want a big send-off! But maybe short stories are just meant to be a glimpse, like peeling back the curtain to look inside, after which it's back to real life, now go away....more

The characters in Russell Banks' stories are suffering with quiet desperation, their needs and desires capitulated to circumstances beyond their contrThe characters in Russell Banks' stories are suffering with quiet desperation, their needs and desires capitulated to circumstances beyond their control (divorce, abandonment) or the tacit resignation of middle age where certain realities are no longer escapable. His stories are vignettes of small-town life where the complicated realities of people's lives are masked by the simplicity of their surroundings, making their actions all the more surprising—in "Christmas Party," a man's ex-wife adopts an Ethiopian infant in a small, Upstate NY town; in "Former Marine," a destitute man finds creative ways to get money that belie his strict adherence to military principles. The subject matter isn't pretty or cheerful, but, than again, neither is real life. I appreciate authors who can write about dog and human deaths in a way that doesn't compel me to blow my brains out.

Though the blurb on the book jacket describes this book as being about family relationships and how we see ourselves in the context of others and some other vague nonsense, I don't think that's what it's about at all. It's a catalog of the shortcomings and compromises made in the context of relationships and how these decisions may alter the course of our lives. In "Lost and Found," a man struggles with the decision he made not to have an affair, though he is unhappily married. In "Blue," a woman sacrifices her whole life for others, until finally she has enough money to purchase a car, but she's put in a dangerous situation before she can make a decision.

Some of the realities laid bare in these stories are depressing, sad, even heartbreaking, more so, perhaps, because the characters are at a point in their lives when things are unlikely to change. At times it was almost too painful to contemplate. But, like most good writing, it forces the reader to reevaluate what they think they know about life....more

Every time I read a Karen Russell book I am thoroughly entertained and enthralled with the world she's created in the depths of the Florida bayou, wheEvery time I read a Karen Russell book I am thoroughly entertained and enthralled with the world she's created in the depths of the Florida bayou, where twisted stumps and weepy, low hanging branches half-submerged in water form a lush, fairytale-like atmosphere that's quiet, almost motionless, on the surface, but underneath the water lies an underworld complete with alligators, manatees and the occasional stingray. Humid days slowly blend into moonlit nights, where a chorus of animal sounds and nocturnal adventures begin. Her narrators are children—believable because Florida (well, this part of Florida) seems like a virtual paradise for the wildly creative brain of a typical child—who deal with a variety of traumas including the death of a sibling and parental neglect, by crafting myths out of the pieces of their broken hearts and souls to help explain the sorrow. A drowned sister is imagined to be singing to her siblings to come rescue her from a cave at night; a girl left alone on an island imagines her sister's boyfriend is a ghost. It really is quite touching but not in a mawkish way—Russell's child narrators have the resilience that many adults seem to think is lacking in the innocent, but they still mourn the loss of something important in their lives.

My favorite story was called "Out to Sea" about a crotchety old man who begrudgingly accepts the teen criminal who's been assigned to him as community service. He begins to look forward to her visits, despite the fact that she's been stealing from him, and he realizes the depth of his loneliness, never realized until the girl comes into his life. The description of the man is one of my favorite in the book:

His amputation gives Sawtooth a flamingular majesty. He rears up before her on his one remaining leg, feather-ruffled and pink with rage. Lately, Sawtooth has the uneasy sensation that he's shrinking—even as, perversely, parts of him have started to grow at a delirious pace. His hairy ears boomerang out from the sides of his head. His eyebrows have overtaken his face like milky weeds.

It's been a long time since I read a book that was so shocking and/or grotesque that it made me laugh out loud at the absurdity of an act that's rarelIt's been a long time since I read a book that was so shocking and/or grotesque that it made me laugh out loud at the absurdity of an act that's rarely perpetrated by a sane individual. American Psycho maybe? In any case, this book was far less violent than the aforementioned book overall, but the stories tap into some deeply weird perversions and strange manifestations of people's subconscious desires. Either way, it's very dark and intriguing as far as I'm concerned from the perspective of someone who tends to read things like this from a distance, but some might find the murderous/sexual deviance a bit too much to bear.

I feel like there are some similarities to Mary Gaitskill in that Amelia Gray is not afraid to write about things that don't often get brought up in polite conversation. The difference is that we don't get to know Gray's characters enough to be depressed by their problems—some of her stories are just a few paragraphs long, and it's more of just an in-your-face, naked depiction much like the cover art here with the skin peeled away to reveal the morbidly fascinating—or slightly revolting—insides. I feel like Amelia Gray must wake up a lot in the middle of the night and write down her dreams!

The oddities start off pretty pedestrian early on. A father on vacation, eats the styrofoam cup that previously held his coffee, absentmindedly, as he stares off into the distance. Next we have a couple that hires a prostitute, lock her in an air conditioning duct for a period of time, forcing her to defecate through an air vent (thoughtfully, they put down a tarp and bucket on the ground to catch what falls through). The stories get progressively weirder from here on out. A woman and her friend get into a "thank you" competition until one sends the ultimate gift—eight mice that each poop one letter to spell, you guessed it, thank you! Except for one mouse, that is.

The last mouse was uncomfortable constipated in a life threatening way until she took him to the vet and had the Y extracted at the expense of $45.

Other stories bordered on Onion-like absurdity, almost a suspension of reality. In "The Man Ahead," a man suddenly decides he'll mimic the man driving in front of him on the road. He follows him to work and home, imitating him the entire time, to the chagrin of all those around him.

And, in case you were wondering if swans were clean animals, they're not according to "The Swan as a Metaphor For Love."

Nobody in the history of the world, save another swan, has licked a swan's foot while that foot was still attached to the swan....Anyone who claims that a swan is a majestic and noble creature has never seen a swan up close.

But, my absolute favorite story was "The Lark." A man who pukes continuously gets a job at the post office (how appropriate). One day a woman tries to ship a cat with no legs through the mail. I won't spoil the ending but it's weird, suffice it to say....more

Such a great collection of stories and not a bad one in the bunch, which is highly unusual as short story collections go. I was also probably a littleSuch a great collection of stories and not a bad one in the bunch, which is highly unusual as short story collections go. I was also probably a little too excited to learn very shortly into the book that the author's father was a member of Charles Manson's Family, a fact that I'm sure she's less thrilled about than the general public is rapt with morbid fascination. But yes, she plunges right into a story that mixes elements of her father's life with the Family to her (fictional?) supposed friendship with a woman who was literally ripped out of her mother's vagina with a razor blade by Manson himself (aptly referred to as Razor Blade Baby) that she suspects may be her half-sister since the child was a product of a group-sex situation which tends to get dicey as far as paternity is concerned. But the kind of not-knowingness of whether this story is true yet knowing that it might be autobiographical was extremely cool to me even though the author's experience of said home C-section was secondhand knowledge at best, but still.

And it just gets better from there because for one, I am fascinated by stories set in Nevada or very remote, desolate places—maybe it's the utter depravation of being in a place that literally has no limits mixed with a harsh landscape that's totally unforgiving that lends itself to interesting people and stories. I don't know what it is exactly, but I do know the last time I went to Las Vegas we made a detour off the strip to check out other parts of the city, which I was expecting to be fairly uneventful given that it was in broad daylight and the temperature hovered around 120. While stopped at a light, I saw a man descending from the haze of the day like a mirage, shirtless with sweat pouring down his rock hard abs like a fountain. His eyes were literally unblinking and he was running at top speed toward some unseen destination as if his goddamned life depended on it. Though this tweaker and I did not meet, we did lock eyes very briefly and I saw a wildness and debasement in that penetrating stare that, to this day, I have not seen in another human being.

So though the book only dips its toe in the sea of depravity as subject matter as described above, the stories remain edgy and tough, yet never maudlin. There is so much going on in these stories that could weigh them down and make them oppressive—deaths, both past and present as well as failures and possibly some wistfulness that has not yet blossomed into full-blown melancholy—but the characters weather their blows with a practiced resilience. ...more

**spoiler alert** There's a palpable sense of desperation in these stories or novellas, I should say, that transcend simple loneliness. Past mistakes**spoiler alert** There's a palpable sense of desperation in these stories or novellas, I should say, that transcend simple loneliness. Past mistakes or present circumstances force the kind of self-revelatory accounting of past transgressions that rarely happen when things are going well in someone's life. The details of a son's recollection of his father's downward spiral when his business fails are revealing in a way that show how advancing age can stymie true recovery and a sense of hope. Or a change in his wife's behavior can signal a more ominous turn of events.

After a while, it seemed that he was no longer Bill Welch, property owner and entrepreneur, but Welchy, who drank boilermakers with off-duty cops and men from the mills, Welchy who bought dawn breakfasts for old waitresses and young runaways.

In her voice—almost overexuberant—was not simply holiday cheer, but joyous relief, like some terminally ill patient who's just been told she's not sick anymore.

This is not one of my favorite books, but it's also not one that I would relegate to the "horrible" pile either. What I did find horrible about the book, however, was the coercive sex scene in "Dirty Love." They manipulated this vulnerable girl's trust! It was grotesque, sad, and sadistic and made me (1) feel that teenagers today are really fucked with the advent of the internet and cell phones, (2) feel like I'm 100 years old for making the previous statement, and (3) that men/boys who would be comfortable with that kind of humiliation against a woman deserve to be locked away for many centuries. ...more

One of the best short story collections I've EVER read (thank you to the New York Times for raising my consciousness about this author!). For those noOne of the best short story collections I've EVER read (thank you to the New York Times for raising my consciousness about this author!). For those not in the know about Lucia Berlin—which is probably most people since she was pretty obscure while alive and only slightly less obscure now—her life was as colored and nuanced as a pulp novel: alcoholism, abuse and an itinerant childhood are all overriding themes that present themselves over and over in her stories. Despite the dysfunctional elements ever-present in her life, the stories don't radiate a sense of palpable despair and unhappiness and the shock value of certain elements is blunted by a Southern-Gothic-like sensibility. Setting can be key: since most of the stories take place in either Arizona, California and Texas, it's conceivable that Berlin was channeling the West's reputation for stoic individualism —I can almost picture Berlin riding in the backseat of a convertible Cadillac saying "You only live once so might as well live it up!"

Your mother slit her wrists. Well, you know, not bad or anything. She wrote a suicide note about how you always ruined her life. Signed it Bloody Mary!

It's also worth mentioning that most of the stories in this book are linked—the same characters crop up over and over again and become like familiar friends which is easier to swallow than most short story collections where the reader is forced to asses 30 different characters in small doses.

I'm also impressed by the fact that Berlin was able to so eloquently draw from her own painful past and infuse the stories with so much of herself at the expense of other people's judgement and/or scorn. Thankfully she lived in an era before social media shaming! She describes moments that include humiliating half- walks/crawls to the convenience store for alcohol so that she can quiet the DTs that threaten to make her completely nonfunctional for the day. Was the writing therapeutic for her? As a single mother raising four boys with on-again, off-again spouses, it seems that way.

The writing, beautifully simplistic yet profoundly moving, will resonate with you long after the book has been finished:

She said that if I didn't see her on Thursdays it meant she was dead and would I please go find her body. That was a terrible thing to ask of someone; also then I had to do my laundry on Thursdays.

I'm having a hard time writing about Sunday. Getting the long hollow feeling of Sundays. No mail and faraway lawn mowers, the hopelessness.

When your parents are dead your own death faces you. Oh, I know what you mean...there is no one to protect you against death anymore.

He wasn't kind. Kind is a word like charity; it implies an effort....Jesse had a compassionate curiosity about everyone. All my life I felt I didn't really exist at all. He saw me....more

I know everyone on Goodreads is all googley-eyed over this book, but I can't muster up the adjectives to describe it glowingly. My apologies The shortI know everyone on Goodreads is all googley-eyed over this book, but I can't muster up the adjectives to describe it glowingly. My apologies The short stories seemed scattershot and rambling to me, which may have been the manner intended by the author as a way to convey a certain sense of isolation and restlessness following an uncoupling as it is known in modern parlance, but I felt that the author kept adding non-sequiters that kind of threw me off and made me think of people who constantly interrupt you mid-thought to talk about something completely unrelated to what you were originally talking about.

There's probably no sense in recapping the plot here—the stories are all connected by the common themes of isolation and loneliness and the difficulties of finding a sense of place and belonging during times of transience.

Despite my initial criticisms, I did find some pages worthy of a turn-down (thankfully the library copy I read was already pretty dog-eared).

She ate her breakfast in a high-backed chair along the wall, eating slowly as if she were on a trip away from home for the first time, getting to pick what she wanted and enjoying the secrecy of her choice

After the divorce, I saw light everywhere. Some light—the light at the end of the day, the way it hit the pigeons that flew around the steeple, the way it hit the sides of buildings—that light felt like entrances to other worlds....more

With so many authors jumping on the gravy train of weirdness, I feel like Alissa Nutting is a pretty sincere weirdo (I mean that in the nicest way posWith so many authors jumping on the gravy train of weirdness, I feel like Alissa Nutting is a pretty sincere weirdo (I mean that in the nicest way possible) plumbing the depths of her own subconscious to write stories that consistently top themselves on a scale of bizarre to absolute absurdity without being what I would consider gimmicky, or just weird for the sake of shocking people's sensibilities. Needless to say, this kind of strangeness is right up my alley, but it may not be up yours if you like your stories firmly grounded in reality or if you don't enjoy laughing while you're simultaneously crying.

Without being too gushy over an author, my first thought when reading this book was that Alissa Nutting has a rare gift, and that's the ability to write very humanly and quite humorously about the eternal dilemmas inherent to being, well, human. This is an important point to bring up since Nutting also, coincidentally, happens to be incredibly skilled at concocting scenarios so bizarre and surreal they seem fit for a parallel universe.

Take "Corpse Smoker," for instance, about a dude named Gizmo who does not literally smoke the dead...but he does, however, smoke their hair so he can visualize the dead person's life, much like a movie reel, during his human bong session. So odd, yet so compelling. This line kills me (no morbid pun intended): Knowing he has just handled dead flesh creeps me out at first, but then I move closer. Maybe, I decide, it is a nice contrast for him. Believe it or not, it's kind of a sweet love story in a kind of "Harold and Maude" -ish way.

"Deliverywoman" is full of loneliness and longing for human connection and how others can manipulate that in a self-serving ploy. Set in a futuristic world, "CargoBabe" is pursuing a one-sided relationship with"FluidTransfer69," despite it being alarmingly obvious to the reader that he's mostly interested in living up to his online moniker. At the same time, CargoBabe is trying to rescue her criminal mother from a lengthy prison sentence by bidding on her cryogenic permacapsule at auction. Chaos ensues and there's a twist, but it's both funny and poignant and demented all at the same time.

My vote for most bizarre is "Ant Colony" which is about an overpopulated world that demands that organisms share bodies; one woman decides she will have holes drilled in her body to house an ant colony. This one is pretty grotesque and sickening and made me squeamish mostly because it played on my double phobia involving holes and insects, but it gets my vote for strangest of the bunch! It almost reads like a dystopic cautionary tale of superficiality and vanity gone horribly wrong.

Though I'm 100% sure I've gone overboard on my use of the word "strange," please don't let that scare you into not giving this book a chance! Nutting's stories are sharp, honest, and compelling enough to make them memorable. ...more

There are many things that I know to be true about life that are stashed in a secret compartment of my mind, certain inevitabilities and cold, hard reThere are many things that I know to be true about life that are stashed in a secret compartment of my mind, certain inevitabilities and cold, hard realities that I choose not to ponder deeply or to really consider the implications of in defense of my own sanity. For example: My death, the deaths of family members, illness, infirmity, etc...The inescapable reality of death is, of course, clear to me in a very abstract sense, as part of the cycle of life, but the winding path toward the bitter end is still a deeply disturbed and haunted place that I'd rather not tread...at least not now (and probably not ever).

For that reason, I found myself slamming the book down in exasperation at several points, unable to cope with Munro's characters and their sad, sad, overwhelming despair, youthful adoration turned to adult derision, and dissatisfaction with domestic life or lack thereof. The author does not shy away from confronting the forces that are universally threatening to what we hold dear: aging, illness, loneliness. Building on these themes are sudden tragic events that populate the nine stories—extramarital affairs, death, the loss of respect for an older family member who was previously looked up to as a role model—exposing the characters to a wide range of complex emotions that you sense have been simmering beneath the surface unexpressed for years due to tradition or small-town propriety or simply because there was no right time and place. The stories are powerful because they are like closely-observed vignettes of real life, as if Munro is the Ghost of Christmas Past leading the reader into what used to be. It's deep, it's real, and it's worth reading. Just don't expect a happy ending....more

This book is incredibly difficult to review, mostly because I'm in that very meh, in-between category of not loving this book, but also not passionateThis book is incredibly difficult to review, mostly because I'm in that very meh, in-between category of not loving this book, but also not passionately hating it either—it inspires a sort of apathetic response that I attribute to a mid-winter depression that seems like most of the year in Russia. Blah.

From the start of this novel, you're gut-punched with a variety of grim and horrific domestic scenarios, each one worse than the one before—alcoholic and abusive husbands, scheming children, suicide, and poverty—that became strangely desensitizing after the 1/3 of the book, so much so that the author could have thrown in a mass kitten murder on story 6 and I would have been like, "Hm, that's a bitch," and moved on coldly, that's how unmoved I was. This was surprising as these kinds of wretched situations are generally sufficient to {gently} thaw my cold, icy heart but, alas, I could barely muster the will to slog through to the end.

The Russia Ludmilla Petrushevskaya depicts is less glamorous, perhaps, than the blinged-out version we've seen on various documentaries about oligarchs over the years. No, her Russia involves generations of families crammed into tiny, decaying apartment blocks, violent domestic squabbles, alcoholism, deadbeat men, and single mothers struggling to improve their impoverished circumstances. It's bleakness on a level I haven't contemplated before and hope to avoid in the future, if I want to avoid living the rest of my years in a padded room.

I'm convinced that Ludmilla's (I'm on a first name basis with the author here mainly because I'm too lazy to use the surname) popularity in Russia is more hero worship than anything else, though there certainly could have been something profoundly lost in translation that I'm unaware of as a non-Russian speaker. As one of the first writers to realistically depict the negative outcome of communism in a way that directly contradicted what the government hailed as an “idyllic socialist paradise,” there were a lot of props being given for just being brave enough to put her neck on the line, so to speak. Which, of course, is admirable, but doesn't necessarily imply good writing or relatable characters or a coherent structure, all of which these stories seemed to lack. This also makes me think that I'm missing the entire point of everything, given how much critical brouhaha has been stirred up by this author from the NY Times, NPR, and others.

So, while I can certainly appreciate the author's cultural significance at a certain time and place, I did not really like this book. Read at your own risk....more

Curtis Sittenfeld captures the petty insecurities, childhood resentments, and marital dissatisfactions that tend to seethe within us for years, slowinCurtis Sittenfeld captures the petty insecurities, childhood resentments, and marital dissatisfactions that tend to seethe within us for years, slowing churning to the surface when ignited by chance encounters. It's the human condition. How many of us, though, ever get the chance (outside of college and high school reunions) to face off with our childhood rivals, in-person, as adults, seeing them as their true selves? In one of my favorite stories of this collection, “Regular Couple,” a woman who was unpopular in high school finds herself staying at the same ski resort as her high school nemesis, strangely enough, while they are both on their honeymoons. Maggie soon realizes her former enemy has lost some of her high-school luster, and she must decide if revenge is in order to rectify past grievances.

She was definitely still pretty, but not like she'd been in high school; that pretty seemed to guarantee whatever life she'd wanted, whatever boy, whereas the pretty she was now was that of a well-groomed, mid-level professional–a pharmaceutical rep, perhaps. Nevertheless, I felt an old, visceral insecurity that manifested itself in an impulse to cover up our cribbage game with my hands.

Other stories surprise and captivate with their bursts of unrestrained honesty, raw human emotion, and unexpected twists. In “Off the Record,” a journalist makes a quick judgement of her celebrity subject, only to find out that she's the one that's been taken for a ride. In “The Prairie Wife,” which seems to be loosely based on the Pioneer Woman, a suburban woman becomes obsessed with her former friend's fame and the secrets she may be hiding.

Much like a good independent movie where the characters seem like real people with real problems and not just abnormally attractive people slumming it in the average world, Sittenfeld's characters are not embellished or made larger than life—they're suburban moms, divorcees, “spinsters,” and lifelong bachelors who make mistakes, unfairly judge one another, and occasionally forget to shave before they hook up with their shuttle bus driver. Who amongst us hasn't done one of all of those things? ...more

This book really captivated me! More than anything, I think Lionel Shriver is an exceptionally talented writer, which made Property something I oftenThis book really captivated me! More than anything, I think Lionel Shriver is an exceptionally talented writer, which made Property something I often quietly savored in the wee hours of the morning when I should have been doing something far more productive with my time other than titillating myself into oblivion.

As for the stories themselves, well, the title pretty much sums up what you're in for. There are several short stories sandwiched between two long-ish novellas at the beginning and end, all based on the idea that the ownership or acquisition of stuff can change the dynamics of a relationship for better or for worse or reveal some deeply-buried truths about ourselves (or others). Is it true? Well, if the music and entertainment business has taught us anything, it's that overnight success replete with a windfall of cash certainly doesn't bode well for long-term financial security, however, these stories are a bit more subtle in their allegorical recommendations in the vein of “mo money, mo problems.”

What Shriver's characters have in common is conflict, both within themselves and with the people circling their orbits. In “Subletters,” the concept of “The Odd Couple” is taken to the extreme, but not in the way that personality quirks can be sublimated into humorous madcap adventures. Sara being the Felix of this duo, arrives home to find her tidy apartment ransacked and her sense of propriety turned on its head by the roommate from hell. The ensuing interior standoff between the two women over food, living space, and dishes ends up being a microcosm of the larger border conflicts going on Northern Ireland around them. Can I just say that my phobia of people touching was stuff was completely, 100% triggered here? WTF??? As someone who visibly cringes when other people overstep their boundaries in my home (yes I was an only child), I felt a palpable sense of horror from the idea of some stranger rummaging with their grubby, unwashed hands through my food bags, strewing my personal papers around haphazardly, and leaving dirty dishes to (GASP) rot in the sink!

Less triggering, but no less interesting was “Vermin,” where one half of a cool, bohemian couple undergoes a personality lobotomy triggered by the purchase of a Brooklyn house. What once was a passionate relationship fueled by a casual indifference to money and responsibility morphs into a newfound obsessive interest in property maintenance, pest control, and neatness, the relationship soon dissolves into an (un)predictably staid and stagnant puddle that neither party is willing to mop up. Marriage may be a covered dish, but it's as dark and unfathomable under the cover as from above....the wild life had up and left us.

One thing that especially impressed me about the author was her character development. When Shriver introduces a character you find out every little detail about them, from the clothes they wore in college, to their favorite granola. Sure, to some, that level of granular detail may be tedious, even pointless, possibly even long-winded, protracted, and prolix, but I've always been a firm believer that more is more, as I derive a great deal of enjoyment from reading beautifully crafted sentences that can transport me to a place that's not where I am while I'm reading the book (unless that happens to be the Amalfi Coast, in which case, I'll stand down). I don't think Shriver overdoes it though and, for the most part, her narrative is well-balanced enough to not get bogged down in the details. It's not Dickens, for chrissakes! For example, Shriver's description of a much-maligned character in “The Standing Chandelier,” gives you just enough to kind of understand where the misplaced hate is coming from (not that I necessarily agree):

She taught herself a sprinkling of Italian, for example, but in the spirit of frivolity, and not because she planned to visit Rome but because she liked the sound...Jillian pursued purposelessness as a purpose in itself....She was surrounded by go-getters, and they could have their goals, their trajectories, their aspirations—their feverish toiling toward some distant destination that was bound to disappoint in the unlikely instance they got there.

Probably one of the best short story collections I've read in quite a while. Oh, and really really funny, if you like gallows humor with a touch of British wit....more